4/08/2008 @ 12:01AM

World's Healthiest Countries

Clean air, low rates of illness and access to food help make these the world’s 15 best places to live.

Methodology: To compile our list, we attempted to gather health and environmental statistics for every nation. But due to incomplete data, we only ranked 138 nations around the world. The statistics we examined include estimated air pollution in world cities, the percentage of a country’s population with access to improved drinking water and sanitation, infant mortality rates, the rate of prevalence of tuberculosis, the density of physicians–generalist and specialists–per 1,000 people, undernourishment rates, and healthy life expectancy for men at birth.

Sources: Ambient Particulate Matter Concentrations in Residential and Pollution Hotspot Areas of World Cities: New Estimates Based on the Global Model of Ambient Particulates (GMAPS); The World Bank Development Economics Research Group and the Environment Department Working PaperWorld Health Statistics 2007; World Health OrganizationGlobal Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment, 2000 Report, Geneva and New York; World Health Organization and United Nations Children’s Fund. Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative CouncilFAO Statistical Yearbook Vol. 2 (2005-2006) Country Profiles